rescue
2006-10-10 | 7:18 p.m.

So, in conversation with Marc (I am not going to get into the habit of referring to him as "the boy" like I did with Justin!) the other night, I finally came out and said it. That one little word that sums up why I was so down for so much of last year.

Lonely.

I skirted around that word so much. I never wanted to come out and say it. On the few occasions I let it out, I downplayed it by adding "and bored." But the truth is that the real problem was that I was lonely.

Most of my classmates had lives outside the department. Friends from childhood. Friends from undergrad. Boyfriends. Wives. Whatever.

I had friends. Great ones. Problem was, they were in other cities.

I had my cousin, who I almost never saw, given our non-intersecting social circles and his health problems. I had my classmates, who I almost never saw outside of school, given their aforementioned lives plus the fact that we saw each other way too much as it was. And I had that one friend I obsessed over.

I kept hoping for a miracle. That someone would come along and rescue me, and make everything right. That I'd find among my classmates, or in that one other friend of mine, the best friend I so desperately wanted. Someone to save me from myself. Someone to open the door and show me a place where I could fit.

Things never got unbearably bad last year. Periods of loneliness are part of life, blah blah blah etc. The truth is that I was getting by. And I don't hold it against any of the people I knew here that they didn't hear the word I wasn't saying. I kept the mask firmly in place, and I never really expected anyone to see past it. Which is not to say I wasn't hoping, sometimes desperately hoping, that someone would surprise me.

I couldn't handle the thought of doing it all again. Of crying drunkenly into my cocoa the night after my last exam, because the department celebration had wrapped up at ten and I was still in the mood to celebrate, but had no one to celebrate with. Of panicking because I thought I might have to spend an important day alone.

Hence my joining the grad students society council ... which has gone pretty darn well so far, thanks. Hence my taking a shot at the whole internet dating thing ... which also seems to be working out pretty well for me at the moment.

The point ... and I do have one, I swear ... is this--

Now that I've widened my circle a bit, I'm able to be a lot more rational about things. I was supposed to hang out with my other friend this week. Now it's looking like that isn't going to happen. A year ago, I would have been devastated. I would have obsessed over it. Oh sure, I'd have known it was irrational to feel so utterly rejected, but I'd have felt it anyway.

This year, I amazed myself by thinking oh well, maybe next week. Wow. Where did such an utterly reasonable, un-self-pitying thought come from?

Reading waaaaay too much into every shuffled plan and unanswered email is just one more symptom of loneliness ... and, frankly, it's the one I may just be the most glad to be rid of.

And I did it. Me. There was no rescue, just me smacking myself upside the head and telling myself to get out there and do something about it.

It feels good.

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